Book Review: Peeps

Fiction: Peeps
Author: Scott Westerfeld
Genres: Fantasy, Comedy, Mystery, YA
Rating: 9.5/10

Summary:

"One year ago, Cal Thompson was a college freshman more interested in meeting girls and partying in New York City than in attending his biology classes. Now, after a fateful encounter with a mysterious woman named Morgan, biology has become, literally, Cal’s life.
Cal was infected by a parasite that has a truly horrifying effect on its host. Cal himself is a carrier, unchanged by the parasite, but he’s infected the girlfriends he’s had since Morgan—and all have turned into the ravening ghouls Cal calls peeps. The rest of us know them as vampires. And it’s Cal’s job to hunt them down before they can create even more of their kind. . . . "

This is something entirely different from what I usually read. Definitely a hilarious piece of work, I thoroughly enjoyed Cal's adventures of finding out where his ex-girlfriends were and the problems that he had to deal with that made him go..well, crazy. This book can be partly categorized into the theme of vampires, but the whole STD spin off made it tremendously different and interesting.

Peeps has some strong situations and language, and it turns out that it's just that much more attention grabbing. The effects of the disease parallels the conventional vampire setup, but it's definitely funnier and more lighthearted. The teen aspect of Westerfield's book is that unlike the usual way for someone to turn into a vampire (they need to be bitten by another one), the disease is sexually transmitted. Which... totally made me read the book. [Ed's note: ...and raises some eyebrows as to Cal's promiscuity].

Since Cal has a strong immune system that prevents him from turning crazy and allows him to stay in control, he joins an organization whose main goal is to hunt down peeps like his ex-girlfriends - those without that extra layer of protection. Perhaps the interesting part of the book is that in each chapter, Westerfeld includes a description of various real parasites and diseases; a taste of real science, so that while you read the book, you might come to believe that everything you read might happen for real.

The combination of action, romance and that extra dash of scientific commentary makes for a great read.

By: Eli.
Edited By: Annie